Steve Emerson: Hillary Clinton and Hamas

2008 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton wasted no time last Thursday denouncing Hamas after the terror group's big win in the Palestinian parliamentary elections.

But as noted terrorism expert Steven Emerson pointed out when Mrs. Clinton first ran for the Senate, relations between the top Democrat and supporters of the notorious anti-Israeli organization haven't always been so chilly.

In fact, in a November 2000 report on OpinionJournal.com headlined "Hillary and Hamas," Emerson noted that Mrs. Clinton "has met repeatedly" over the years with "groups that had openly supported Hamas, Hezbollah and other foreign terrorist organizations."

Hillary launched her outreach program to U.S. Muslim leaders beginning in 1996. But as terror expert Emerson observed: "Curiously, nearly all of the leaders with whom Mrs. Clinton elected to meet came from Islamic fundamentalist organizations."

Among the most troubling terror-friendly groups cultivated by the former first lady was the American Muslim Council, an organization that had "clearly established a record in support of radical Islam," he said.

After the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, for instance, the AMC vigorously defended Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman - whose followers carried out the attack - as a "theologian" who advocated "democratization of the Egyptian political system."

The blind sheik is now serving a life sentence in connection with that attack and other plots to blow up New York City landmarks.

Another group that benefited from Mrs. Clinton's Muslim outreach program was the Islamic Relief Association, which Emerson noted, "clearly has a militant agenda."

Less than three weeks before a top official with the group met with Mrs. Clinton, the association held a fund-raiser in Brooklyn, N.Y., where the main speaker was Sheik Abdulmunem Abu Zant.

At the time, noted Emerson, "Mr. Abu Zant was a deputy in the Jordanian parliament and the self-proclaimed leader of the most radical wing of the Islamic Action Front. He is an ardent supporter of Hamas and has repeatedly called for holy war against Israel and the U.S."

Another organization embraced by Mrs. Clinton was the Muslim Women's League and its parent group, the Muslim Public Affairs Council, which Hillary lauded in a May 1996 speech for fighting against "hatred."

Three months before, however, MPAC had defended a bus bombing in Jerusalem and called the Israeli response a "terrorist act."

Three years earlier, apparently before the group launched its supposed anti-hate campaign, MPAC issued a statement decrying Israel for its "unjust and illegal usurpation of Muslim and Christian lands and rights."

Concluded Emerson: "A review of the statements, publications and conferences of the groups Mrs. Clinton embraced shows unambiguously that they have long advocated or justified violence. By meeting with these groups, the first lady lent them legitimacy."